The Law Offices of Lawrence D. Rohlfing has represented the disabled since 1985 before the Social Security Administration, District Courts across the country, Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the United States Supreme Court.
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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

ALJ directs Worthington to assume a range of sedentary work with six hours of sitting; three hours of standing/walking; occasional ramps/stairs; occasional stooping; occasional crouching; no ladders, ropes, or scaffolds; no balance with left leg; no kneeling; no crawling; no hazards; and no vibration. The claimant is a younger individual with a high school education and no past relevant work. Worthington identifies three occupations:

Worthington concedes that she uses the entire OES group of job numbers and then just rounds down. How magnanimous. But it is not a reliable method of estimating job numbers. That method does not comply with either Purdy or Chavez. It is not even as gross as the equal distribution method of estimating job numbers.

Worthington concedes that the number of jobs does not consider the industry in which the occupations exist.

Worthington admits that being able to sit only six hours in an eight-hour day will erode the number of jobs available in the labor market.

Worthington does not believe that there are 200,000 assembler jobs in the nation; does not believe that there are 80,000 addresser jobs in the nation; and dose not believe that there are 100,000 order clerk jobs in the nation. She gave testimony that she knew was untrue because those are the groups in which those occupations exist. But she does not believe that the numbers cited represent the approximate number of sedentary unskilled jobs within those categories. I submit that Worthington admitted to giving materially false testimony on the record. Examining the particulars of the work identified reveals incompetence on top of knowing prevarication.

That puts the number of jobs on line 125 since 339910 and 339993 are subsets of 339900. The number of production workers, all other in the industry group cannot exceed 5,400 before accounting for exertion and skill.

The ORS puts the number of order clerks at the sedentary range with not more than six hours of sitting at 25% compared to 51.6% that require sedentary exertion including more than six hours of sitting.

If we had a medical expert that testified with no connection to the medical records in the file, we would argue that the witness deserves no weight. The record available to a vocational expert is the data accumulated and reported by the Department of Labor in the DOT/SCO, the O*NET, the ORS, and the employment projections. That record includes the County Business Patterns from the Census Bureau. But if we don't present the record to the ALJ, our clients lose.